It is correct that Ward LaFrance started the slime lime "craze." The first truck painted that color was given to my department by the Pabst Company a few years ago. We just recently sold it back to the department that made the initial purchase of the truck in the 1930's. Now for a little history...

In the 1970's, Ward LaFrance and DuPont teamed up to create a "more visible" color for fire apparatus. Ward LaFrance bought back a 1937 engine, which was originally brown, and painted it slime lime. The truck then toured the country, promoting the new color. Eventually, the truck was retired from touring, and purchased by the Pabst company to be used for their water fight team.

In the early 2000's, the Pabst company contacted "Fire Truck Chuck," the chief of the Mount Horeb Fire Deparment, and wanted to donate the truck. They new about how well we keep our trucks, and thought that we would take as good for care of it as we do with the other trucks.

In 2004, it was decided that we could no longer keep the older parade trucks that were not originally ours, and we were contacted by the fire department that placed the order with WLF, and it has been sold to that department.

A lot of barns were painted red because the rust red was an easy, almost home made paint using red clay pigments. Glossy reds, as used on fire trucks, are expensive compared to other colors because of pigmentation.

"I have a dream. It's not a big dream, it's just a little dream. My dream — and I hope you don't find this too crazy — is that I would like the people of this community to feel that if, God forbid, there were a fire, calling the fire department would actually be a wise thing to do. You can't have people, if their houses are burning down, saying, 'Whatever you do, don't call the fire department!' That would be bad."
— C.D. Bales, "Roxanne"

There is a volunteer company in Baltimore County that has white over dark green trucks. Of course, they are from the community of Long Green, named after the "long green pike" through the farmlands of north central Baltimore County. Their company motto is "It isn't easy being green."

SAFD, bigger is not always better.....I almost hated that truck until I realized that it did everything a bigggg truck did only it was only 30' long.......Here is my truck at 34'6" with a 1250 pump and a 200 tank. For more info, see www.hillhooks.org